Hidebehind

Eighteen

About a week later, I was with Grandpa by myself. Great Grandma never usually left us alone with him, but Penny was at school, and she'd had to go take care of some emergency involving the church potluck that evening, so there I was, alone with Grandpa. When she'd left, Great Grandma asked me to keep an eye on him.

I hadn't been in school all that week since I'd gotten home from the hospital. Great Grandma hadn't brought the subject up, but I knew we'd have to talk about it at some point. I would have to do some kind of school, somehow. In fact, I was getting pretty bored just sitting around at the house. I certainly didn't want to go back to Oxcart Elementary . . . ever. I was determined not to. Penny had said I couldn't hide forever, but I didn't see why not.

Grandpa was sitting in the family room, reading a newspaper. Or, at least, I figured he was reading it. I could never quite tell unless I asked him, and sometimes his lack of a response was all I needed to tell me he wasn't really with himself at the moment. I was sitting on the floor, drawing random things on a notepad with pencils I'd found squirreled away in my bedroom closet. They were all really, really old, by the look of them, and I didn't have a pencil sharpener, so my artistry was limited. It was a quiet morning; the cat was sitting on top of the table (where it wasn't supposed to be, but heck if I cared). There was no noise except my scribbling pencils and the ticking of a clock in the kitchen. I was keeping my mind happily distracted with the nonsensical doodles I was drawing, and I would have kept on like that for as long as I felt if Grandpa hadn't started talking to me.

"You can't hide forever, Robert," he said, not even looking up from the paper, and I realized he was himself at the moment.

That was an invitation to respond. "I'm not hiding. I just hate that school. I hate those kids."

Grandpa put his paper down and looked at me, smiling unnervingly, like grown-ups do when they know something you don't because you're just a kid. "Listen, Robert, I know it has to be really hard for you to be here. I can't imagine leaving my friends and moving all the way to a different state, where you get stuck with a couple of old people and have to make all new friends. I hardly had any friends myself, and I even grew up here. But you've got to try to accept things how they are, or you'll never be happy."

"I don't want to be happy."

"Oh. Well, in that case, you're thinking the right way, then."

I focused on the octopus I was drawing. It was attacking a boat full of penguins. The penguins were dressed like pirates. I thought it was a pretty good sketch and was imagining what would happen next when Grandpa interrupted my thoughts again.

"I knew your friend Alex's Grandfather. His name was Joe. We went to school together, a long time ago."

"He's not my friend."

"Doesn't matter. Your acquaintance, then."

I just kept my eyes on my paper, my pencil still going but now slowly doodling a nondescript blob, the penguins having been forgotten.

"He was a real nice man. I hear his grandson's a lot like him."

"You mean they were both jerks."

Grandpa chose not to reply and went back to his paper.

The clock ticked. "What about your other friends?"

"Hm?"

"When you were a kid. What about your other friends?"

"Other friends?" He wasn't even paying attention.

"Yeah, like Jimmy . . ."

Grandpa snapped his head up and peered at me, squinting one eye like some old turtle. But he didn't poke his head back in his shell of newspaper; instead, he put it down on the table. "Now I suppose you heard the same story they've been telling for years. Is that it?"

Shrugging, I answered, "How would I know? All I know is what I heard."

"Which is what?"

Should I tell him what I knew? I couldn't. I had no idea how he'd react.

"It's all right, Robert. I just hardly remember much of it, myself . . . it was all such a long time ago. I went camping in the woods with a friend, and he disappeared."

"Jimmy?"

"Umhm."

"And . . . and nobody found him?"

"Nope. Don't think so." He whipped his paper up off the table and buried himself back in it.

I sighed inside. He hadn't told me anything I hadn't already known. "What was Jimmy like, Grandpa?"

He waited a moment before replying, "You know, I remember that he was really bold. The kind of kid who wasn't afraid of anything at all. Perfect friend to go camping with. In fact—"

There was a knock on the front door. I started.

"In fact what, Grandpa?" Keep going! I wanted to yell. What about him?

"Better get the door, Rob."

That was it, then. I scowled and got up from my drawings. Whoever was at that door was going to get a face-ful of hate from me . . . except she didn't. Alex's sister, Maisie, smiled the instant she saw me, and my angry expression about fell off my face.

"What are you doing here?" I couldn't think of anything more polite to say.

"School's out. I got here real quick on my bike."

From within, Grandpa called to ask who it was. I responded with "Nobody!" and pushed the squealing screen door aside to step out.

Outside, it was warm and dusty. It seemed always dusty on the old farm. I briefly wondered whether it would be like that even in winter, but then I turned to the matter at hand. "I mean, why are you here?"

She was younger than me, but not by much, and she had really long, brown hair that was shining. "I wanted to . . . to tell you . . ." She seemed nervous.

I found that encouraging.

"Well, what?"

"Well, my brother. It's just that he feels really terrible about what happened in those woods. He never meant for something bad to happen to you. It was a stupid joke. All the kids do it to each other: they take a kid out into the woods, tell him that ghost story, and leave him there. It's so dumb. That's not even where the whole story happened. It's just like an initiation or something stupid. But now everyone kind of finally realizes it's not really okay—cause of what happened with you."

I knew she was trying to be nice, but all I felt was my humiliation. I seemed to heat up about five degrees. "Oh, I get it. So everybody's talking about me, now? The stupid scared idiot who couldn't take it, even though everybody else could? Great. Thanks for telling me that. Real nice of you to stop by." I made to head back in.

"That's not why I came!" Maisie sounded like she meant it. "That's not it at all. I'm sorry if I made you feel worse."

I turned around and looked at her. "Well what do you want, then? Did your brother send you to apologize for him? Because he already said he was sorry."

"No, he doesn't even know I came over. He'd be mad if he knew. I just am so angry at him, because I know it must be hard for you to be new here, and the other kids at school and I . . . well, we just want you to know that you should come back. Because we're not all mean, and you should give us another chance. That's all."

I watched her for a moment. She wasn't sure what to do with her hands. She had them clasped, then at her back, then messing with her hair. I could tell she was nervous for my answer. But I didn't care. "So you're the spokesperson for the whole school, now, is that it?" I sneered. "Good to know."

Then I headed back into the house, spotting Great Grandma pulling up the drive as I went inside.